‘When did you see… the Virgin?’ Not without some fear he evoked the name of the Mother of God.
‘Every time she appears.’
The foreigner reacted as if it were blasphemy. He felt as if Abu Rashid were insulting his own mother, which is true, since the Virgin is the heavenly mother of every Christian.
‘And when is that?’ He decided to calm down. There was nothing to gain in losing control.
‘It depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On what she has to say to me.’
‘She’s the Mother of Christ, a Christian icon. Do you believe in her?’ Don’t lose patience, don’t lose patience.
‘I believe because I see her.’
‘It could be no more than a hallucination, man of God… of Allah,’ he corrected himself.
‘Allah is God,’ the Muslim countered.
‘But not mine,’ the other replied decisively.
‘Only one God exists. Mine could be yours.’
‘Leave the dogma. You believe because you see her.’
‘Correct.’
‘But she could be only a hallucination,’ he suggested.
Abu Rashid shook his head, denying it.
‘No. Hallucinations are like mirages. They deceive.’
‘And she doesn’t deceive?’
‘Never. Everything she tells me is always true.’ The word reflected the respect he had for the visions.
The foreigner got up again and paced from one side of the spacious room to the other. He sighed deeply, his hands behind his back.
‘What has that vision told you?’ he finally asked.
‘Oh, many things…’ He smiled.
‘For example,’ the foreigner insisted.
‘She spoke to me of the flood and the drowning.’
‘How many years ago was that?’
‘Ten.’
‘You’ve had this vision for ten years?’
‘More,’ the Muslim agreed, with the same smile on his face.
‘When did you have the first vision?’ the foreigner inquired, halfway between the bed and the door in his nervous demand. ‘Do you remember?’
‘As if it were today,’ Abu Rashid announced with a melancholy, nostalgic look, and remembered that day, his birthday, the eleventh, when she appeared at his side on the Mount of Olives, dressed in pure white, so brilliant that he had to shield his eyes with his hand. He was running back to the city to the same house he lived in today on Qadisieh Street to go with his father to pray at Hara mesh-Sharif.
‘Where are you going in such a hurry?’ she asked him in a calming, melodious voice.
Contritely, respectfully, the boy explained his duties to God and his family.
‘God is always within you. It is enough to hear and feel Him,’ she replied like the song of a nightingale. The melodious reply had made the boy stop to see her better.
‘Who are you?’
‘I have many names. Maria of all wishes and ideas. The Virgin, anything you want to call me, including Lady.’
The boy found that very strange. A lady with any name you want to call her?
‘Okay, okay, okay,’ the foreigner said, calling him back impatiently to the present. ‘So, according to what you’re saying, she’s appeared to you since you were eleven years old,’ he summarized.
‘Correct.’
‘Is there some specific day, some ritual you have to perform so that she’ll appear?’
‘No.’
‘Can you calculate how many visions you’ve had?’ He sighed. He was losing patience.
‘That’s easy.’
‘It is?’ At last there was hope.
‘It is. All I have to do is count the days since the vision on the Mount of Olives.’
‘I don’t understand.’ He returned to sit on the edge of the bed, attentive.
‘It’s simple. She’s appeared to me every day since then.’
The foreigner stared at him incredulously. ‘Are you saying the Virgin appears to you daily? That would be thousands of times.’
Abu Rashid confirmed it with a nod of his head.
‘And this fact hasn’t converted you to Christianity?’
‘As you can see, no.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the Virgin has never asked me to.’
‘And would you convert if she asked you?’
‘She wouldn’t ask,’ the old man affirmed with certainty.
‘But suppose she did?’
‘She wouldn’t ask.’
‘And what is it she tells you?’ The foreigner changed the subject.
‘I’ve already answered that.’
‘But I didn’t know you’d experienced thousands of visions of Our Lady. This changes a lot of things. Okay, give me some more examples.’ His tone of interrogation and challenge was obvious.
‘She told me you would come.’
The foreigner gave Abu Rashid time to continue.
‘She told me everything that’s going to happen to you and me.’
‘And it’s turning out true?’
The ring of a telephone interrupted them. It was the foreigner’s cell phone. It couldn’t be anything else, since Abu Rashid hadn’t given in to the marvels of technology.
‘Yes,’ the foreigner answered, getting up and going over to the window. He spoke in whispers so as not to be heard by the Muslim, still not convinced of his visions. Anyway, it was unlikely that Abu Rashid understood Italian.
The conversation lasted several minutes, always in the same nasal tone. He couldn’t be too careful. The foreigner tried to be as evasive as possible, letting unconnected words be heard, like problem, prove, certainly, I’ll do what I can… Suddenly he looked back at the chair where Abu Rashid was sitting and couldn’t help thinking that he understood, or rather that nothing was news to him. He concentrated on the words of the person he was speaking with, setting aside the ideas distracting him. He couldn’t let himself be influenced by words. Only facts counted. The call ended with a click on the other end. He would never dare to hang up first.
‘Did you get your instructions?’ Abu Rashid asked suddenly.
‘It was a private conversation,’ the foreigner protested.
‘About me,’ he asserted.
An ironic smile crossed the foreigner’s lips. ‘I didn’t know you knew Italian.’
‘I don’t, but I’ve known the content of that conversation longer than you have to live,’ he said powerfully.
The attitude in those words struck the foreigner. Something was going on here. ‘Well, do you know what’s going to happen next?’
‘We’re going to take a trip,’ he continued with a serious expression.
‘What else has she told you?’ He tried to change the subject, lightly, ignoring the old man’s hitting the mark.
‘That neither she nor her Son worry about communism or any other political conviction. They never divide the world between good and evil people. Everything bad in the world is created only by us, by our free, spontaneous will. So that when one prays to God to protect us, one really ought to pray to man to defend him from himself.’
The foreigner got up and went over to Abu Rashid, looking down at him from his almost six feet of height.
‘Careful what you say,’ he warned.
‘I’m not afraid.’
‘I see that nothing is news to you.’
‘Well, no.’
‘Is there anything else you want to tell me?’
‘I know what they did with the body of the Pole,’ Abu Rashid said.
Confused, but trying not to show it, the foreigner put the gag that hung from the neck of the Muslim back in his mouth and made sure that the ropes tying his body to the chair were tight to prevent him from escaping.
14
Nestor
August 18, 1981
‘I’m so happy to see you recuperating, Your Holiness.’
‘Thank you, Marcinkus.’
The two men were sitting on a scarlet sofa in the papal office. Wojtyla had seated himself with difficulty. The scars of the attempt on his life remained engraved in his body.
‘To what do I owe the honor?’ the Pole wished to know.